Mapping The Sawkill Watershed
COMMUNITY MAPPING SERIES

Complementing the Stream Stewards' work in the field, Mapping the Sawkill invited Greater Woodstock residents to join in a series of community mapping events. Unfolding over the initiative's run, these events charted the stream’s qualitative attributes and its impact on people’s lives. In the first two events, participants marked sites along a map of the Sawkill that held significance for them, using prompts like "Joy," "Concern," "Flooding and Erosion," "Future Resilience," and "Beauty."

In the second set of events, participants were invited to create collages using maps from the 2007 Woodstock Stream Inventory and Sawkill Creek Assessment Report–first as an "exquisite corpse"- style collaborative work, and then in a kids-only workshop that took place alongside the Creek and incorporated foliage foraged from its banks. Together, these sessions turned residents' memories, concerns, and hopes for the Creek into a living, collective map, strengthening the community's relationship with the Sawkill and connecting the Creek’s past to its future.
 

Exquisite Corps Artists – Zaneta, Matteo Farubekka, Patty Goodwin, Julia Bleblock, Jennifer Zackin, Miranda Javid, Muriel Stallworth

 

Kids Community Mapping
School-aged children were invited to dream and create meaningful, expressive marks on printed Sawkill maps. As we sat in relationship with the Sawkill, next to its flowing waters, inhabiting creatures, gentle trees, and plants, the children felt its presence and thought about their relationship with it. We acknowledged the Sawkill's sensory presence and the children's feelings about it, discussing the joy, wonder, and beauty they have experienced with the creek in their young lives.

For their artmaking, we prompted them to think about their wishes, inspirations, and hopes for the future of our Sawkill, expressing these feelings, thoughts, and dreams while playing with an array of mixed media. Children even made pigments from the clay pebbles of the Sawkill, used its water to paint, and incorporated natural objects found along its banks. We all delighted in everyone's process of creating these visual dreams for our beloved Sawkill.
 

Artists: Maia, Lila Wray, Eleanor, Theo, Jennifer, Nina, Simone, Jasper, Dario, Maxine, Henry, Charlotte, Maxine & Ali, Gracie